I always imagined myself losing my virginity when I was sixteen. I don't quite know why, but it just seemed like the right age. When I was sixteen I went on a six-week summer trip across Israel with my camp and some other camps. Thinking that things might happen, I went on the pill before the summer. I also brought some condoms, just in case.
We became friends right from the start. We found that we had the same cynical and sexual sense of humor. We had met each other the summer before when my camp went over to his camp for a weekend. He remembered me, but I hardly remembered him.
Our relationship started sarcastically. We played an icebreaker game called "Speed Dating" and we agreed that since we had been on three dates, we were dating.
Things go really fast when you're spending twenty-four hours a day with someone. We were lying in a hammock together a few days in and he told me he liked me. I hadn't really thought of him as a sexual prospect before that. He was much shorter than me, and he wasn't exactly "hot," though he was cute. I told him I didn't like him that way but I valued his friendship. We stayed in the hammock for an hour or two after that. I'm pretty sure we held hands. When he walked me back to my tent we had our first kiss.
A day or two after that, we ended up alone in my room together.
"What do you want to do?" he asked in a cheesy, mock-sexy way.
I was blunt. "Want to turn on some music and hook up?"
We did.
Our relationship was good from then on. We hooked up a lot and we quite quickly progressed beyond making out. We had great physical chemistry, and our conversations were refreshingly honest. We discussed sex a lot before having it; we figured we were both ready and agreed it would eventually happen.
We knew each other for about three weeks before we had sex, excluding the weekend we met a year before. The first time happened in a boarding school. It was a Friday night and we had just had Shabbat dinner. Everyone else was busy doing Rikud (Jewish dancing) so we were pretty sure no one would notice or care that we were missing.
I took out the condom before we even got to the bed. We listened to Broken Social Scene and there was little foreplay. I'm pretty sure we left the lights on. He finished in about two minutes, and then we were done.
The sex didn't feel great, but then I hadn't had high expectations. All my friends who had done it had told me that it doesn't feel good the first few times. After we were done I was happy it happened, but mostly happy just that my virginity was finally out of the way. Now virginity didn't have to be some big thing I had to carry around with me anymore.
We had sex three more times on the trip. We did it at a hostel, on a kibbutz and in the shower. Each time was better than the time before, but none were really all that great. As the trip neared the end, we both agreed that we didn't want to try to have a long distance relationship. We lived Great Lakes apart. We decided it would be a lot nicer to be long distance friends than try to date long distance.
We never really did become long distance friends. After we both got home I tried contacting him on Facebook and Skype, and he was really distant and uninterested, telling me he was busy, or he'd get back to me later. He never did. He shut me out. I was the only one putting in any effort so I gradually stopped trying.
Things were great while we were together, and given the sour aftermath, I have mixed feelings, but no regrets. I'm happy to have my virginity checked off my list. I haven't slept with anyone since him, but now when I do I don't have the pressure of it being the first time.